The World Belongs To The Leveraged Creators
It’s been a while since I published an article on Wealest, but I’m pumped to let you know what’s been happening and what it means for content moving forward.
First, I’m rebranding the newsletter to The Leveraged Creator and sending the email under my own name.
So if you’re used to getting emails from Wealest, just know that it will come from Thomas Waschenfelder moving forward.
Second, the content will focus less on theory, and more on execution.
While the Wealest Newsletter focused almost exclusively on the theory of wealth creators, in the Leveraged Creator newsletter, I’m going to write more about my application of these ideas in the context of what I’ve been up to over the last handful of months.
Finally, the rebrand lets me talk more about my own wins, losses, struggles and experiences.
The big reason you haven’t heard from me over the last six months is that I simply haven’t been reading about how people get rich.
And since that was what Wealest and the newsletter was all about, I didn’t have anything to say that I felt was relevant to why you read this site to begin with. So I stopped publishing.
Instead, I’ve been busy building a new career as a screenwriter and producer.
Then I realized that the two things weren’t all that different. And that I could talk about them in a way that merges what I’ve learned writing on Wealest for five years with what I’m doing now.
I don’t know exactly what this is going to look like, but I hope you’ll stick around as a reader and subscriber as I try and give you as much value as possible in every article I write.
I love writing online and getting to hear back from readers like you. So never hesitate to shoot me a note and let me know how I can serve you better!
Now, let’s get into why the world belongs to the Leveraged Creators…
“The final form of leverage is brand new—the most democratic form. It is products with no marginal cost of replication. This includes books, media, movies, and code. Code is probably the most powerful form of permissionless leverage. All you need is a computer—you don’t need anyone’s permission.” - Naval Ravikant
For the last three years, I’ve been writing movies with my wife, Tara. And it’s been incredible. Learning screenwriting as a craft, making connections with producers, and growing together as a writing team has been the greatest gift of my life.
In addition to being sheer fun, the idea of making movies is attractive to me because 1) I love them, and 2) as Naval points out, media has no marginal cost of replication. You shoot the movie once, and then can scale it for almost nothing to as many people around the world who want to watch it.
It’s similar to this article in that way. I only need to write it once, and then I can “copy and paste” it to whoever wants to read it.
The goal has always been to get one of our projects produced. And we’re getting closer every day.
But like the many people who peppered Charlie Munger (RIP) with some version of the question, “how do I get rich like you, but faster?” I’d love to ratchet up our momentum and use the skillset we’ve built to compound in other ways.
And as usual, Naval Ravikant has the answer:
Build and compound permissionless leverage under your own name now to help attract permissioned leverage later.
In my case, this means creating videos with the resources I already have to help attract money and resources for larger scripted projects later.
So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to make short-form comedy sketches (you better laugh or else…) and publish them online.
I can start creating these assets today with the resources I already have. Then, scale them to the world for free because there’s no marginal cost to reproduce them.
With a little luck (and leverage), the assets will build out our brand to help attract permissioned leverage - aka money - for larger projects over time.
And the best part for you (and scariest for me) is that I’ll build these in public so you can learn from my mistakes.
Building In Public.
Part of building in public is taking on accountability under my own name. I’ll do that both with the Leveraged Creator newsletter, and the comedy sketches I write and put into the world.
This doesn’t come without risk. I have no idea how this is going to go. My videos could be bad and I could embarrass myself in front of thousands of people.
But, I do know one thing: the first video I make will be the worst because I will only get better from there.
That’s the power of iteration - slow, constant incremental constant progress that compounds on itself in a positive direction. It’s how water carves away rock, how evolution produces a tremendous variety of lifeforms, and how rewriting draft after draft turns bad work into great work.
I’ll share all the steps of making these videos as I go through them. Everything from coming up with the idea, writing a first draft, rewriting, more rewriting, shooting, editing, and then releasing them to the public.
Hopefully, some insight into my creative process will help you with any issues you’re having with yours. Or, at the very least, inspire you to create permissionless assets in whatever domain you work in.
Build free, permissionless leverage now to get permissioned leverage later. This is the way… and the world will belong to those who do it.
Let’s start now.